Witnesses of Jéhovah and sectarian character in France

The assimilation of the Témoins of Jéhovah to a sect is the debate object in France, implying various disciplines (history, sociology, right…), according to the definition used of this term.

Etymological definition

etymological point of view, they can correspond at the Latin origin of the word ( sectare ) as a schismatic group separating on the doctrinal level from a well established movement, namely the second Adventisme, itself resulting from the Protestantisme.

Sociological direction

The sociological direction in conformity with typology webero-troeltschienne of sect Protestant woman folded up on itself, in opposition to the coextensive Church at the company, seems most suitable to characterize the Witnesses of Jéhovah.

Typology of the sect (Weber and Troeltsch)

In the 19th century, the sociologists max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch define the sect like a grouping religious extremist, intransigent and in rupture with the company. The Église is then the social alternative of the religion which takes its place in the middle of the profane institutions.

Bryan Wilson, sociologist of Oxford, defined eight criteria which make it possible to recognize such a group:

It is a group to which one voluntarily adheres, knowing that this one reserves the right to refuse candidates;
the members must, by the excellence of their control, to deserve their membership of the group; this one can expel whoever besides transgresses its rules.
the group is exclusive and is regarded as people with share.
It proposes with its followers a model of personal perfection.
It is mainly composed of laic.
It is in conflict with the whole of the company of which it rejects the standards.
It sets up a group elistic and claims a very great participation of its members.
It exerts a very strong influence on its members and maintains them apart from the world.

Régis Dericquebourg estimated that these eight criteria corresponded to the Witnesses of Jéhovah well, that he studied 1973 with 1979.

Bernard Blandre, aggregate of history which studies the movement, notes: The Witnesses of Jéhovah constitutes a voluntary grouping believers who regard the world as primarily bad, affirm the single holders of the truth and dedicate to any other organization that theirs with a nearest destruction. By taking from this word any pejorative nuance, they correspond to the sociological definition of the sect and do not aspire in any manner to become Église.

Possible evolution towards the denomination

Nathalie Luca (ethnologist, enquiring at CNRS), which primarily replaces the ideal-type of the sect in the context of Protestantism, considers that with time the sect “routinise”, starts to make concessions or compromises, and approaches the Église type finally.

In a finer analysis, sociologists belong to the evolutions which would show that the Witnesses of Jéhovah would lose of their radicality and would correspond more and more to the “denomination”, stage of passage of the sect towards the Church. Having been brought to again examine the question of the Witnesses of Jéhovah, Régis Dericquebourg noted behavioral changes since its study undertaken in the Seventies:

Humanitarian action: The Witnesses of Jéhovah have several times brought their assistance to the populations victims of floods. Some take part in social actions, for example within the Restaurants of the heart. The national headquarter of the Witnesses of Jéhovah brought a humanitarian aid to the populations of Africa (in particular at the time of the genocide in Rwanda).
National service: Following negotiations with the ministry for Defense in February 1995, the Witnesses of Jéhovah agreed to achieve a civil service to replace the military service.
Refusal of the blood transfusions: hospital structures of information were installation as from 1982, to support the dialog and collaboration with the doctors and their medical teams.
Discussions with the State: The Witnesses of Jéhovah took various steps to be recognized like religious organization.

As for Nathalie Luca, in addition to this arrangement with the ministry for Defense in 1995 and the acceptance today of the “day citizen”, it raises that the Witnesses of Jéhovah grant a greater place to the higher learning, which would go in the direction of a better social integration.

On another side, the historian Bernard Blandre, specialist in this movement having analyzed the recent resolution adopted at the assemblies of summer of 2006, wonder whether they “will cross one day this step”: One knows that with time a sect assagit to become a denomination. If one takes account of the time of their precursors, the Witnesses of Jéhovah have at least two centuries of existence; they still did not pass from one stage to the other - if they cross one day this step. Perhaps this resolution marks a hardening against a starter of evolution: known as not being pilot of Jéhovah, I am in relation to several by Internet. It is known in addition that in certain circumstances of the French congregations of witnesses of Jéhovah made gifts at communal centres of social action, which is condemned by the fifth point of the résolution.

Modern direction

Apart from these nonpejorative definitions, the classification of the Witnesses of Jéhovah as a sect to the modern direction of dangerous spiritual group remains very polemical.

Organizations of information and fight against the sectarian drifts

Since years, they are denounced like sectarian movement by the principal organizations of fight against the sects, in particular by actors of the fight anti-sects in France, such as Didier Pachoud or Jean-Pierre Brard which denounces the dangerosity of the organization of the Witnesses of Jéhovah by evoking to them dogmatic refusal of the blood transfusion. Didier Pachoud for example declared during the national conference organized in Marseilles by the GEMPPI: It is for this reason, that we chose to finish this conference by treating the effects of the doctrines eccentric and absurd of the witnesses of Jéhovah consisting in sacrificing its life or the life of his/her children (it is possible in certain countries with legislation laxist on this point) by the abstention from vital blood transfusions in certain cases to respect the symbol of life that is blood in the Bible. If one made the account of the people thus sacrificed on the furnace bridge of the sectarian doctrinal fanaticism of the witnesses of Jéhovah, we would undoubtedly exceed the number of victims, committed suicide or assassinated, about the Solar Temple. But you reassure, the witnesses of Jéhovah do not disturb the law and order, they let yourselves die in silence, moreover their spiritual driver-supervisors who frame them closely in these moments there, there veillent.

Interdepartmental missions

The study of the behaviors of the sectarian movements led the MILLETS to classify those in three principal categories, which it defines in his report/ratio 2001 by clarifying the group in which it classifies the Témoins of Jéhovah, on page 10 of his report/ratio: The second category of movements gathers, with the eyes of the MILLETS, the groupings with very diverse ideological bases (denominational or philosophical, therapeutic or commercial) which cannot be comparable with sects absolute but dont certain aspects of the behavior are unacceptable insofar as they call into question of the basic rights of the human person. As much with the sects absolute the dialog is impossible since it would consist only of one acceptance by the public authority of the globality of their exchange-values, as much with this whole of movements it appears acceptable: to distinguish what is contestable in their behavior, theirs to announce and not to cease claiming the respect of the common law, it is a difficult task which the Mission, since its institution, given up forever. (...) It is in this category that the Witnesses of Jéhovah are located who, alone form nearly the two-thirds of the followers counted in Metropolitan France and overseas (approximately 250.000 followers often recruited in very modest mediums socially by a systematic policy of house searches). In the continuity of this report/ratio, the former president of the ex- MILLETS, Alain Vivien, indicated that the Witnesses of Jéhovah do not belong to the category of the “sects absolute”, but with a “religious association which has aspects of sectarian drift”.

In May 2006, Catherine Katz, general secretary of the Miviludes, declared in connection with the organization of the Witnesses of Jéhovah: It is a group which gives place to sectarian drifts indexed in the two parliamentary reports and all the reports/ratios of all the French missions and européennes.

Refusal of the amalgams

Nevertheless, whereas they were classified like sect by the Parliamentary commission on the sects in France, in a list gathering all the supposed groups to answer at least one of the ten criteria of dangerosity defined by the General informations, Nathalie Luca, ethnologist and researcher at CNRS, and Frederic Lenoir, philosopher and sociologist, make a distinction between the Witnesses of Jéhovah and the “new sects”, in their work ideal Sectes, lies and : Some will not fail to reproach us for inserting the Witnesses this category of the sects traditional of Christian ground and not in the category of the “new sects” which are defined mainly by the lie and the dangerosity. To have studied in-depth this movement, it is clear for us that the Witnesses of Jéhovah are of nature very different from these new sects. They post their real objectives clearly, the money is used to build places of worship and not to enrich some nabobs, the capacity is collegial and is not between the hands of a guru the Almighty, etc That does not mean however that this group does not present any dangerosité. Of the same Jean Delumeau, holder of the pulpit of history of religious mentalities in the modern Occident at the Collège de France, declared himself “more reserved when one employs the word “sect” for the Witnesses of Jéhovah”. As for Francoise Champion, in charge of research at CNRS, questioned in connection with the Witnesses of Jéhovah, she answered: It is other thing. They enter the logic of old the sects Protestant women folded up on themselves. The Scientology belongs to these new groups which mingle religiosity and therapies with vendre. In addition, the editor association of the Monde of the religions Frederic Lenoir denounced the problems involved in these amalgams due to the publication of such lists of the sects and to the use of strongly connoted words, which include very diverse movements with different levels of dangerosity.

Point of view of the Witnesses of Jéhovah

The Witnesses of Jéhovah, as for them refuse this name in all its forms.

In 1983, the Turn of duty was opposed so that this term is applied to the Witnesses “because they are not the disciples of a teacher or a human Master, nor the ramification of a Church or another confession” without however that the article wonders particularly about the historical origins of the movement. Then the number of February 15th, 1994 affirms that the Witnesses are not a sect because they are “a known religion”, “devote themselves to their next”, follow “the Bible accurately” and do not have “not human chiefs” but it is in its direction of dangerous group that the term of sect is then rejected.

Parliamentary reports in France

Parliamentary report on the sects of 1995

The Témoins of Jéhovah were mentioned in France among the sectarian movements by the parliamentary board of inquiry into the sects of 1995. The report/ratio classifies the Witnesses of Jéhovah among the “apocalyptic movements” which predict the end of the world regularly. It evokes an legal affair in connection with “violations of certain family obligations”, and classifies it among the 57 movements where the commission would have noted “a rupture of the follower with the environment of origin”. Moreover, it evokes it in connection with “the enrollment of the children in a more or less insidious form” and classifies it among the 26 movements which would cause “disorders with the law and order”, without specifying the content of it.

Legal consequences

The French government reminded various recoveries that the parliamentary reports on the sects did not have the force of law and could not justify any discriminatory measurement against the groups which are listed there. The ministry for Employment and Solidarity, for example, established well that the ratio of 1995 “does not have any legal authenticity”. As for the Minister of Interior Department, he clearly explained to the prefects: “These parliamentary reports constitute only one data element and of proposal, they do not claim to have normative value and could not found nor of the distinctions between qualified associations of " sectaires" and those which are not it with the glance of the aforesaid reports/ratios nor of the unspecified sanctions. ”

The administrative jurisdictions confirmed that the presence in the parliamentary report on the sects cannot justify any obstacle with the practice of a worship. Thus the Administrative court of Rennes cancelled the refusal of the mayor of Lorient to place at the disposal of an local association Witnesses of Jéhovah a municipal hall. Within the framework of summary procedure-freedom, the President of the court estimated “that the refusal opposed at present to the request of the aforesaid association is exclusively founded on the appreciation carried by the mayor on his activity, qualified by him of sectarian; that such a decision, which refuses by principle with an association any access to the municipal halls usually placed at their disposal, carries a gravely hurt to the rights of association and meeting; that in the absence of any invocation of precise facts of which it would arise that the real activities of association would undermine the law and order, the decision taken by the mayor of Lorient, which could not find a base in a parliamentary report deprived of normative value, is obviously illegal”. Pareillement, the Administrative court of Poitiers cancelled another communal refusal because it “arises from the parts of the file that, to refuse the application of applicant association, the city of the La Rochelle was based not on a reason drawn from the law and order, but on the character of sect allotted to the Witnesses of Jéhovah by the report/ratio of investigation of the National Assembly of December 22nd, 1995; that this report/ratio, stripped of legal authenticity, could not be used as legal base with the attacked decision”.

Called into question of the use of lists of sects

In a circular dated May 27th, 2005, the Prime Minister asked that the recourse to lists of sects be avoided to the profit of the use of beams of criteria. As a president of MIVILUDES, Jean-Michel Roulet estimated, in 2005, that the parliamentary list of the sects of 1995 is “ completely caduque ” but recognized that it “ allowed to determine the phenomenon even if it were in a sometimes erroneous way and partially incomplète ”. On their side, the deputies spokesperson of the parliamentary groups of the National Assembly declared that the question put by the Prime Minister was that of the ageing of the information collected in 1995 and 1999 and that the creation of a new board of inquiry into the sects in the field of the health and the protection of the minors was going to make it possible “to engage a new inventory of fixtures of sectarian mobility”

Access to the documents provided by the General informations

Being seen refusing the access to the documents establish by the General informations to which the parliamentary report of the Board of inquiry Gest-Guyard of 1995 refers, the Witnesses of Jéhovah seized the administrative jurisdiction. The business having been carried in front of it, the Administrative court of call of Paris estimated that these documents had well the character of administrative documents within the meaning of the article 1st of the law of July 17th, 1978, that the authorities are held to communicate in answer to any request. In its stop of June 16th, 2005, the Court asked for the production of these documents to examine the cogency of the refusal of minister, who called upon the risk of public breach of security. Finally, following this examination, the basic judge decided that the litigious documents were to be transmitted to applicant, bringing his appreciation on these in his stop of December 1st, 2005: Considering that it arises from the examination of the litigious documents, which were produced by the Minister of Interior Department pursuant to the stop before say-right referred to above of June 16th, 2005, that information which they contain, made up of the address of association and its subsidiary companies, very laconic qualitative appreciations on the effects of the activity of association on the individuals and the company and of the number of its antennas per department, cannot be looked at, have regard to their brief character and pain-killer, as comprising elements whose disclosure would undermine the state security or to public safety within the meaning of article 6 of the law of July 17th, 1978; that, consequently, the decision of the minister refusing the communication of the aforesaid documents for the called upon reason ignored the provisions of the law of the above-mentioned July 17th, 1978 and incurs cancellation;

The Council of State rejected on July 3rd, 2006 the recourse of the Minister of Interior Department, which is from now on in the obligation to communicate to Association the Witnesses of Jéhovah the documents held by the General informations which relate to it and which were used as a basis for work of the parliamentary board of inquiry on the sects.

Pareillement, the Council of State confirmed the same day a judgment delivered in June 2005 by the Administrative court of call of Paris which cancelled the decision of the Minister of Interior Department refusing to communicate to the Christian Federation of the Witnesses of Jéhovah de France the documents relating to the requests and investigations carried out near the witnesses of Jéhovah de France with the central management of the general informations to the title of the request for assistance of the parliamentary mission of inquiry on the sects and the money made up on December 15th, 1998. The court asked the minister to re-examine the request for communication of these administrative documents made by the Christian Federation of the Witnesses of Jéhovah de France.

December 18th, 2006, at the time of a press conference in Paris, the Witnesses of Jéhovah made public the file prepared by the General informations on their subject for the parliamentary board of inquiry on the sects of 1995. According to the daily newspaper Le Monde , “This " note blanche" , which was communicated to them after eight years of procedures, includes/understands only one card of presentation and the list of their places of worship”.

The question of a journalist about the fact that the Witnesses of Jéhovah would have been placed in 1995 on the list of the sectarian movements on the basis of note of the General informations empties, at the time of the press conference of the parliamentary Board of inquiry of the 12/19/2006, the deputy Alain Gest answered: I do not know this note. What I can say to you, it is that when in 1995, we have choose to make publish the list of the 173, at the time, sectarian movements, to which were added a certain number of movements subsidiary companies, which increased about the numbers of organizations at approximately 1000, we did it on the faith of information which was given by the services of the General informations of the National police force. And thus we reflected a long time before knowing if we choose to publish this list. We have it assumé.

Journalist - Excuse me I allows itself to insist, but you known as, you based yourselves on this note to classify them in the list.

- Alain GEST-Non! Not on this note. On the list which was provided. I did not base myself on a note, but on a list.

- journalist - Yes of course. But how you can trust with information which is empty?

- Alain GEST-Listen to! I will tell you the things very frankly. I am republican and I have at least as much confidence in the police force of my country that in movements which deny a certain number of realities that we still could note.

Parliamentary board of inquiry into the sects and the minors (2006)

The submitted parliamentary report on December 19th, 2006 evokes the Witnesses of Jéhovah with regard to the conditioning and the culpabilisation of the children (pages 24 and 36), the timetable charged with the pilot children (page 25), the indirect evangelization at the school (pages 26 and 27), the psychological disorders which would generate “the separation of with the world” (pages 29 and 30), incapacity of the development of autonomy (page 32), risks of misprision of sexual abuses on minors (pages 39 and 40), psychological difficulties of the exit of the movement (page 51), the problem of the blood transfusions (pages 65 to 68 and 129 and 130) on this subject he proposes a modification of the law to oblige the transfusion even if the parents do not agree (page 184), on the conditions of approval of the families of Witnesses of Jéhovah wanting to be “family of reception” (Pages 135 to 137) and proposes to integrate in the delivery of the recognition of pertaining to worship associations closed superior interest of the children (pages 143 to 152).

In an article of the newspaper Le Monde (Friday, October 20, 2006), the journalist Xavier Ternisien announced the quarrel opposing the ministry for the Interior to the parliamentary board of inquiry on the sects and the minors in connection with the legal status of the Witnesses of Jéhovah in France. During a public hearing by the commission made up in June 2006, the central office of the worships made a development on the recognition of the statute of Religious organization with the Witnesses of Jéhovah (which would be then the 5th religion of France) and rejects the arguments of the deputies antisectes, who miss according to him from a legal point of view consistency. The article also recalls the affiliation of 700 ministers of religion of the Witnesses of Jéhovah to CAVIMAC, mode of social security reserved to the worships. The report/ratio 2006 of the Miviludes (interdepartmental Mission of vigilance and fight against the sectarian drifts) quotes this standard commodity, in a paragraph where it indicates that the Witnesses of Jéhovah “profited from happy contests, reflected by the media”. At the time of the presentation of the report/ratio to the press, Georges Fenech, appointed UMP, president of the parliamentary board of inquiry into the sects showed the public authorities and particularly the office of the worships of the ministry for the Interior, of “negligence, even kindness” in their connection. “The chief of the office of the worships (Didier Leschi) has a very personal position which requires to be clarified since it is in contradiction with what the ministry for Health says”, he declared on Tuesday, December 19 on France 2. The deputy Jean-Pierre Brard has even marked Didier Leschi, chief of the Office of the worships, “complicity with the TJ”, showing that its position is in contradiction with that of its minister Nicolas Sarkozy, after reading of a letter addressed by this one to his colleague Minister for Health, where it gives a report on the infiltrations of the Witnesses of Jéhovah in the medical environment.

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